More Good Homes: The urgent national mission for the UK

Tuesday, 3 October 2017

The Country We Want To Be is a new programme which will cast a vision for the UK after 2019, looking forward to the opportunities and threats we face as Britain leaves the EU and forces a new path in the world.

The More Good Homes project is part of this programme. Our Introductory Note on housing policy informed a seminar we held at Conservative Party Conference with Secretary of State for Communities and Housing, Sajid Javid. Following this and through an open and consultative process we will publish a position paper in the autumn of 2017 and then a policy paper in 2018.

In imagining the country we want the UK to be, few things are more important than the home we will live in. Few things matter more to individuals and families—and few issues represent such an acute threat to our country's well-being.

The current state of housing in the UK is undermining Britain's economic and social order. It is the most acute domestic challenge facing our country.

At the Legatum Institute we are focused on tackling the major challenges of our generation—and seizing the major opportunities—to ensure the legacy we pass on to the next generation is one of increasing prosperity and human flourishing.

The UK needs a new national mission to build the houses we need—a campaign on the same scale as Nye Bevin's Home for Heroes housebuilding effort in the 1940s, or Harold Macmillan's which followed in the 1950s. For all of this, public consent and political leadership are required.

The foundation

The Legatum Institute Foundation is a registered charity (number 1140719), and a company limited by guarantee and incorporated in England and Wales (company number 7430903), registered address 11 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DW